[Applause]
US schools have come a long way since
desegregated but they still have a long
way to go especially as it relates to
language equity and opportunities for
students in public schools it’s
estimated that by 2020 one out of every
four students in US schools will be
Latino and this presents an opportunity
to build on the rich cultural heritage
of these students and they build on
their rich heritage language in order to
make more equitable experiences not only
for them but higher quality educational
experiences for all students I was born
in El Paso Texas and grew up in Corpus
Christi Texas and in this region all of
this territory was once Mexico and
people of Mexican heritage will proudly
tell you that they did not cross the
border the border crossed them this land
became part of the United States after
the mexican-american war
my grandma Simona was born in 1915 and
she attended Mexican schools and most of
her life she spoke only Spanish I was
born in 1971 and went to school in South
Texas and most of my life I only spoke
English following the end of slavery in
Texas Mexicans experienced much of the
same discrimination as blacks under Jim
Crow law same loss of Liberty same loss
of life in one of the biggest ranches in
Texas over 800,000 acres it said that
there’s a mesquite tree for every
Mexican that was lynched there and my
grandmother ends up attending a Mexican
school until the third grade when then
she is forced to help support her family
and work and these Mexican schools were
notorious for providing an inferior
education oftentimes poor facilities
poorly resourced but my grandmother
really internalized that as somehow her
own fault she said to me when I was
young she said it’s gay time we boutta
mija
nobody up and dead in glass the reality
was she was denied schooling because she
didn’t speak English and this doesn’t
really come into question until 1947
with the case of Mendez versus
Westminster this is when they finally
begin thinking about the rights of
Mexican students in schools and in this
case the federal court ruled that the
separation of Mexican students into
remedial Mexican schools was both
unlawful and unconstitutional and this
is a really important court case because
it lays the groundwork for Brown versus
the Board of Education and in fact the
n-double-a-cp had joined this case
represented by Thurgood Marshall and he
goes on of course to represent the
n-double-a-cp again in Brown versus
brown versus board of education which
desegregate s– all schools right in the
United States despite you know
desegregation my family really struggled
in school to understand that even after
desegregation Mexican students still
suffered from language discrimination
students were punished for speaking
Spanish in school sometimes they were
classified as learning disabled if they
couldn’t learn English my own parents
were spanked for speaking Spanish in
school and they were brilliant people
but school was not a very safe place but
my mother almost dropped out of high
school and my father even as an English
Learner managed to graduate from high
school but didn’t really see a future
for himself in higher education he
decided instead to enlist in the Navy
during the Vietnam War and he felt it
was both his rite of passage as a man
but he also understood it to be his duty
as a US citizen he returns to a country
after his tour of duty that is
completely steeped an anti-war protest
and two organizations that are still
largely discriminatory against Mexicans
and in 1971 when my parents have me they
make a decision they decided that they
were not going to teach me Spanish they
did this really because of the
humiliation and discrimination they
faced in schools they suffered and did
not want me to suffer by the time I’m in
high school
Brown versus the Board of Education is
already 30 years old but still I happen
to go to high school that’s almost
entirely African American and black
students from poor and working-class
families and even within that schooling
system there were stratifications
segregation based on language and
language
position if you spoke standard academic
English you might find yourself at the
top of that stratification if you were
an average student of language arts you
found yourself somewhere in the middle
but if you were a speaker of Spanish as
your first language or you were limited
on your English proficiency you were
almost entirely segregated from the rest
of the school population I was lucky
enough to find myself at the top of that
stratification I was an honours student
I was a student who was easy to teach
for whatever background knowledge me and
my peers had we were regarded as
intelligent and this intelligence then
entitled you to more more challenged
higher expectations and more help from
your teachers because they believed
strongly that we might actually have a
chance to get into college and it
continued a kind of inequity in schools
those of us who were able to get a more
quality education than others and this
is not default my teachers they were
amazing they shined on us they nodded to
us you are special you are different the
fault really was with a system that
determined upon whom they would shine
and for what purpose I was accepted to
Georgetown University and graduated here
in Washington DC and that’s when my
entire world turned upside down first of
all I was no longer an honors student I
was a struggling student I really it was
hard for me to keep up with the volume
of reading that we had my professors
said I had inferior writing skills this
from a kid who made all A’s in high
school and I really struggled every
single day especially because when
you’re the first person in your family
to go to college you’re not just failing
yourself you’re feeling everyone in your
family who couldn’t go your uncle’s your
aunt’s your parents and your
grandparents who were only schooled into
grammar school but the second rude
awakening was the status of language in
this new environment I was surrounded by
international students students who
their entire lives had spoken a language
other than English and they seemed
emboldened by that ability they were
considered talented for it even u.s.
students had gone to schools of
immersion to learn
in Spanish and this while people in my
own community poor and brown children
were either stripped of their heritage
language or demoted socially and
academically for speaking it in this
kind of lit a fire under me I really had
to ask why like why were we ever
separated in the first place and what
could I do about it
I think I became an educator largely in
part due to this experience and in my
experience I decided that I was going to
be a public school teacher and in those
first years I was really haunted by
several questions and those were why
don’t we not only think that all
students can learn at high levels but
that they can do that at more complex
levels right if they’re together rather
than separated and secondly why can’t we
use the rich culture and heritage of
students and build upon it for higher
you know results when I had my own child
I also decided that I was going to teach
him in English and in Spanish I am now
the founding principle of mundo vetted a
bilingual public charter school and we
are a community of over 500 students
we’re considered one of the most diverse
schools in Washington DC and students
are engaged in learning and fun but
demanding ways they do lots of research
and inquiry they investigate essential
questions and they consult with experts
in the field in order to learn as much
as they can and they express their
learning in beautiful ways outside of
the school to the larger community and
they do this in English and in Spanish
it’s really been years in the making as
an educator but when I think about my
grandmother it’s been over a century in
the making
I had possibly what was one of the
longest conversations I ever had with my
grandmother right before she passed this
because I had finally mastered Spanish
and in that conversation she told me
about the Mexican schools and she told
me about our heritage and our heritage
and really it was the first time I
understood right the struggle that she
had been through I really hope that she
and my mother and father and all our
ancestors shined down on this work at
mundo Vetta
really helping us to
creating learning environments that
build strong ties between students that
build upon the empathy that’s part of
our core curriculum at mundo Vetter that
really gives students the opportunity to
shine and creates less divide in schools
and more unity thank you
[Applause]
US schools have come a long way since
desegregated but they still have a long
way to go especially as it relates to
language equity and opportunities for
students in public schools it’s
estimated that by 2020 one out of every
four students in US schools will be
Latino and this presents an opportunity
to build on the rich cultural heritage
of these students and they build on
their rich heritage language in order to
make more equitable experiences not only
for them but higher quality educational
experiences for all students I was born
in El Paso Texas and grew up in Corpus
Christi Texas and in this region all of
this territory was once Mexico and
people of Mexican heritage will proudly
tell you that they did not cross the
border the border crossed them this land
became part of the United States after
the mexican-american war
my grandma Simona was born in 1915 and
she attended Mexican schools and most of
her life she spoke only Spanish I was
born in 1971 and went to school in South
Texas and most of my life I only spoke
English following the end of slavery in
Texas Mexicans experienced much of the
same discrimination as blacks under Jim
Crow law same loss of Liberty same loss
of life in one of the biggest ranches in
Texas over 800,000 acres it said that
there’s a mesquite tree for every
Mexican that was lynched there and my
grandmother ends up attending a Mexican
school until the third grade when then
she is forced to help support her family
and work and these Mexican schools were
notorious for providing an inferior
education oftentimes poor facilities
poorly resourced but my grandmother
really internalized that as somehow her
own fault she said to me when I was
young she said it’s gay time we boutta
mija
nobody up and dead in glass the reality
was she was denied schooling because she
didn’t speak English and this doesn’t
really come into question until 1947
with the case of Mendez versus
Westminster this is when they finally
begin thinking about the rights of
Mexican students in schools and in this
case the federal court ruled that the
separation of Mexican students into
remedial Mexican schools was both
unlawful and unconstitutional and this
is a really important court case because
it lays the groundwork for Brown versus
the Board of Education and in fact the
n-double-a-cp had joined this case
represented by Thurgood Marshall and he
goes on of course to represent the
n-double-a-cp again in Brown versus
brown versus board of education which
desegregate s– all schools right in the
United States despite you know
desegregation my family really struggled
in school to understand that even after
desegregation Mexican students still
suffered from language discrimination
students were punished for speaking
Spanish in school sometimes they were
classified as learning disabled if they
couldn’t learn English my own parents
were spanked for speaking Spanish in
school and they were brilliant people
but school was not a very safe place but
my mother almost dropped out of high
school and my father even as an English
Learner managed to graduate from high
school but didn’t really see a future
for himself in higher education he
decided instead to enlist in the Navy
during the Vietnam War and he felt it
was both his rite of passage as a man
but he also understood it to be his duty
as a US citizen he returns to a country
after his tour of duty that is
completely steeped an anti-war protest
and two organizations that are still
largely discriminatory against Mexicans
and in 1971 when my parents have me they
make a decision they decided that they
were not going to teach me Spanish they
did this really because of the
humiliation and discrimination they
faced in schools they suffered and did
not want me to suffer by the time I’m in
high school
Brown versus the Board of Education is
already 30 years old but still I happen
to go to high school that’s almost
entirely African American and black
students from poor and working-class
families and even within that schooling
system there were stratifications
segregation based on language and
language
position if you spoke standard academic
English you might find yourself at the
top of that stratification if you were
an average student of language arts you
found yourself somewhere in the middle
but if you were a speaker of Spanish as
your first language or you were limited
on your English proficiency you were
almost entirely segregated from the rest
of the school population I was lucky
enough to find myself at the top of that
stratification I was an honours student
I was a student who was easy to teach
for whatever background knowledge me and
my peers had we were regarded as
intelligent and this intelligence then
entitled you to more more challenged
higher expectations and more help from
your teachers because they believed
strongly that we might actually have a
chance to get into college and it
continued a kind of inequity in schools
those of us who were able to get a more
quality education than others and this
is not default my teachers they were
amazing they shined on us they nodded to
us you are special you are different the
fault really was with a system that
determined upon whom they would shine
and for what purpose I was accepted to
Georgetown University and graduated here
in Washington DC and that’s when my
entire world turned upside down first of
all I was no longer an honors student I
was a struggling student I really it was
hard for me to keep up with the volume
of reading that we had my professors
said I had inferior writing skills this
from a kid who made all A’s in high
school and I really struggled every
single day especially because when
you’re the first person in your family
to go to college you’re not just failing
yourself you’re feeling everyone in your
family who couldn’t go your uncle’s your
aunt’s your parents and your
grandparents who were only schooled into
grammar school but the second rude
awakening was the status of language in
this new environment I was surrounded by
international students students who
their entire lives had spoken a language
other than English and they seemed
emboldened by that ability they were
considered talented for it even u.s.
students had gone to schools of
immersion to learn
in Spanish and this while people in my
own community poor and brown children
were either stripped of their heritage
language or demoted socially and
academically for speaking it in this
kind of lit a fire under me I really had
to ask why like why were we ever
separated in the first place and what
could I do about it
I think I became an educator largely in
part due to this experience and in my
experience I decided that I was going to
be a public school teacher and in those
first years I was really haunted by
several questions and those were why
don’t we not only think that all
students can learn at high levels but
that they can do that at more complex
levels right if they’re together rather
than separated and secondly why can’t we
use the rich culture and heritage of
students and build upon it for higher
you know results when I had my own child
I also decided that I was going to teach
him in English and in Spanish I am now
the founding principle of mundo vetted a
bilingual public charter school and we
are a community of over 500 students
we’re considered one of the most diverse
schools in Washington DC and students
are engaged in learning and fun but
demanding ways they do lots of research
and inquiry they investigate essential
questions and they consult with experts
in the field in order to learn as much
as they can and they express their
learning in beautiful ways outside of
the school to the larger community and
they do this in English and in Spanish
it’s really been years in the making as
an educator but when I think about my
grandmother it’s been over a century in
the making
I had possibly what was one of the
longest conversations I ever had with my
grandmother right before she passed this
because I had finally mastered Spanish
and in that conversation she told me
about the Mexican schools and she told
me about our heritage and our heritage
and really it was the first time I
understood right the struggle that she
had been through I really hope that she
and my mother and father and all our
ancestors shined down on this work at
mundo Vetta
really helping us to
creating learning environments that
build strong ties between students that
build upon the empathy that’s part of
our core curriculum at mundo Vetter that
really gives students the opportunity to
shine and creates less divide in schools
and more unity thank you
[Applause]
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